Why All Trades?

I’ve grown up around people who all specialize in one thing each. My father? He’s a medical pain doctor. My uncle? He’s a physicist. My grandfather? He’s an engineer. The closest I have to someone whose focus is closer to ‘jack of all trades’ is my mother… but she’s more of an interior decorator. So, everyone around me has a focus. Everyone around me has always had a focus.

I’m the major outlier. My interests lie in everything. Instead of having a focus, I want all the arts. Every. Single. One. Singling out one of them or two of them had me stretched far, far too thin. My mood dipped. My mind stopped wanting to get out of bed. My body stopped feeling the need to take care of itself.

Depression swept over me, and it did not budge until I figured out what was wrong: I desperately needed every single art. Without them, I lost my purpose.

It took putting my foot down to all of the people who wanted me to focus on one craft for me to be able to stand on two feet and fight for all I needed and wanted to be. To me, I will always be a jack of all trades, fighting to become better at the crafts my life is built around.

This brings me to the ‘why’ portion of this article: some people stretch themselves too thin if they try to do one or two things at a time. Essentially, not focusing on everything took away my ability to do anything. Stretching myself too thin destroyed my being able to create because there wasn’t enough to focus on.

I do everything because it allows my mind to roam.

We’re often told as people to focus on one thing, become one thing, do one thing. It’s why we go to college or university and earn a major on one thing. It’s why we go to get our doctorate in, again, one area. We focus our entire lives on how to perfect our favorite crafts.

But, what if our favorite craft is, well, everything?

We need to allow ourselves to practice what we love. Our hobbies can turn into careers, and our practices can turn into money. It’s not that I’m doing this for the money, though. I’m doing this because I’m taking advantage of a shorter attention span, and the fact that doing more, to me, actually feels like doing less. This makes it easier to collect work, and easier to be able to practice everything.

The more I do, the more work I collect, the more I’m able to dissect myself into the act of creation. So, essentially, the act of all trades keeps me going. It doesn’t just keep the depression away. It doesn’t just give me more to work on. Somehow, it allows me to cycle through, to make room to make room, and to free my mind enough so what I love to do never wears me out.

If you love to do everything, just as I do, don’t be afraid to allow yourself. People often look down on what they don’t understand, but just because that’s happened to me hasn’t deterred me from doing what I love. If you love something enough, you can always make it work.

I hope these words have inspired you to practice what you love, not only the one thing you believe you should be doing.